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Guy Hands bounces back with bid and £1.4bn fund

THE financier Guy Hands, one of the City’s best known dealmakers, is in talks to buy Mentmore, Europe’s leading storage specialist.

Mentmore, which has a market value of £155m, is expected to make an announcement to the stock exchange tomorrow to confirm the talks. According to one property source, the company has granted Terra Firma, the private-equity vehicle headed by Hands, an exclusivity period to carry out due diligence.

Hands became a household name after founding a principal finance unit at Nomura and turning the Japanese bank into one of the country’s biggest owners of private businesses.

He embarked on a £10 billion buying spree, acquiring and securitising the cashflow of some of Britain’s biggest consumer brands. At its peak Hands’s unit controlled a betting company, the Ministry of Defence married-quarters estate, a train company, a pub estate and a television-rental business. He agreed a formula where he would pocket